La Reforma — Restaurant in Albuquerque

UPDATE: We ate at La Reforma again last night, and it was just as delightful as the first time! (Consistency is important in a restaurant.)

The service was perfect--thanks Averie!--he dropped by at good intervals, NEVER interrupted our conversation, answered questions and offered tastes of samples of things we wanted to try. (We ended up buying a bottle of their delicious rum because he let us taste it!) Did I mention this place is also a distillery?

The El Tri (watermelon drink) was absolutely delicious! We also went home with a crowler (32 oz. can growler) of it to enjoy later. We had the nachos with Al Pastor meat on top, and a few tacos. I REALLY like the Carne Asada, and I think I'll have the loaded fries with it on top again next time. I thought it was genius to have about 5-6 kinds of meat and serve them in so many different ways! You can get each of the meats made into tacos, burritos, salads, mini Mexico City-style tacos (like empanadas, apparently), on nachos, or on French fries. I'm sure there are other ways, too. These are the ones I remember.

We sat in the room off to the right of the main room, and it was a little more intimate. It was a little darker and quieter, and in addition to the usual tables with chairs and bar-height tables, there were comfy chairs around lower tables that would be a nice place to sit and chat over drinks with friends. The music was just the right volume to add ambience but be completely unobtrusive and make it easy to talk.

We really enjoyed ourselves again, and we already have plans to go back.

Previous visit: This place was awesome! Jeff the owner chatted with us and let us sample a lot of drinks, and I found this DELICIOUS watermelon drink that I now love. The asada fries are delicious, and we loved the pollo...

We went there with high hopes there would be a new, favorite, neighborhood eatery we could put on our list. I ordered the El Tri cocktail. They tempted me with the photo on their website of a pinkish cocktail with a slice of watermelon on the rim and it was very tasty but "where's the alcohol"? For $8.50 one would expect to taste something besides just mixer. After the drink, I thought I would switch to wine, no wine so I ordered a La Ref lager, very light and smooth, not bad, $5.50 for a 16 oz glass. For an appetizer, we ordered chips & salsa. For $9.50 we were expecting something besides just chips on a tray with salsa & guacamole, maybe for that price, delicacies on the side to go with the chips like several different salsas and a bean dip? No. For an entree, I ordered the Carnitas burrito. A generous amount of rice & beans but where's the meat? I unwrapped it after I got home to see. For $12, I would expect the portion of meat in this large burrito to be predominant. My husband had no complaints about the Carne Asada Torta, it was okay, more meat than the burrito. Will we be eating there again? No. The food was okay, nothing to write home about, rather bland. The check totaled $64.17 (not including the tip) not much for your buck. Even if the food stays bland, La Reforma could improve by not being so stingy with the alcohol, appetizer and meat. For what you get here, this place is wwaayy...

Came here for a work event. Food was good, drinks were good, servers from the servers were good, however the manager, Joel was extremely rude. Helicoptered around our table for over an hour and kept giving us a count down for how long we were allowed to stay. We (12 people) continuously ordered food and drinks while there were available tables here and there. Upon arriving to our reservation, we were told that we only have 1.5 hours to eat stay and leave “once everyone arrives”. Before everyone even arrived we were continuously given a countdown to when we had to leave. This put so much pressure and was so incredibly unreasonable. I’ve served at a small restaurant for 5 years, and we would be dammed to ever kick anybody out while actively ordering and eating. I have never ever been to any restaurant where we were given a time limit for being present and eating and ordering. In addition, after asking if there was any written policy to backup what they were saying, we were told there was no written policy. This is such poor management and was dealt with very poorly. There is no line out the door, there are open tables. We will not be back. I still cannot believe we were told that we will be kicked out while literally actively ordering and eating. I have never been in this situation at any restaurant in my life. I don’t typically ever write 1 star reviews or complain, but this is...